The Rack: Luke Mogelson, "Which way did the Taliban go?" (NYT Magazine).

Explosive rivalry

Clashes between the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) Pakistan and Ansar al-Islam militant groups broke out in the Khyber Tribal Agency on Friday, continued through the weekend and were still ongoing Monday, resulting in the deaths so far of almost 60 people, most of whom are being identified as militants (Dawn, ET, AP, The News). Fighting between the two groups began when the TTP captured an Ansar al-Islam base on Friday, prompting Ansar fighters to attempt to retake the base by force.

Bus services and trade across the Line of Control dividing the disputed territory of Kashmir resumed on Monday, after being suspended on January 10 following some of the worst cross-border violence in a decade (AP, NDTV, Dawn, AFP). And Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Bismullah Khan Mohammadi arrived in Pakistan on Sunday for five days of talks, beginning with a meeting with Pakistan's Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in Rawalpindi on Monday (Dawn, ET).

Deadly blasts

A suicide bomber detonated his explosives in the middle of a public square in northern Afghanistan's Kunduz City on Saturday, killing 10 policemen, including the head of the police counterterrorism department, Abdullah Zemarai, and the head of the traffic police, Sayyed Aslam Sadat (NYT, CNN, BBC, AFP). Later on Saturday, a police truck carrying officers and detainees hit a roadside bomb in Kandahar City, killing 10 of those on board (AP, BBC, ). The police had driven to a residential area of the city to inspect a bomb discovered there; they detained three suspects and were returning to headquarters when they hit the buried explosive.

The Afghan government has criticized a United Nations report about widespread and systematic torture of detainees in Afghan-run prisons, inviting Afghan reporters into the detention centers to view the facilities and interview some detainees (NYT). President Hamid Karzai has also appointed an official commission to investigate the findings in the report.

Changed our minds

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense spent $50,000 to buy and destroy the first 10,000 copies of a book on the Afghan war entitled Operation Dark Heart, saying the book contained classified information (NYT). Almost three years later, censors at the Pentagon now say 198 of the 400 passages that they previously forced author Anthony Shaffer to delete are actually fine to print.

-- Jennifer Rowland

New Post: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, "America's non-committal relationship with Afghanistan" (FP).

Guilty until proven innocent

Pakistan's Attorney General Irfan Qadir told the country's Supreme Court on Thursday that the security forces are holding some 700 suspected militants without charging them, under a controversial law that has been condemned by human rights organizations (AP, AFP, Dawn). The admission came during a hearing on seven suspected militants who had been held by Pakistan's intelligence agency since May 2010 and who say they were abused during their detention.

The United Nations will reportedly launch an investigation into the use of drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Palestine to assess the extent of civilian casualties in different types of strikes and the legality of the strikes in countries where the UN has not officially recognized a conflict (Guardian). The inquiry will be led by Ben Emmerson QC, a UN special rapporteur who ha previously said that "double tap" strikes, in which a drone fires a second round at a target when rescuers have arrived on the scene, could constitute "war crimes."

Officials in India-administered Kashmir on Monday published an advisory in a local English-language magazine detailing how locals should prepare for nuclear war (AJE, AFP). In an editorial on Tuesday, the newspaper called the advisory "ill-timed and inopportune," as India and Pakistan come off a tense period following several skirmishes at the Line of Control that divides Kashmir.

Over 100 children died of measles in Pakistan in less than three weeks at the beginning of this year, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to call it "an alarming outbreak" on Wednesday (AFP, ET). Many affected residents blame the government for failing to carry out an effective and extensive vaccination program.

Spiderman of Sukkur

The town of Sukkur in Pakistan's Sindh Province has its very own Spiderman, but this diminutive wall-climber saves lives in a different way (ET ). Calling himself Raees "don," he charges students 500 Rupees to deliver completed tests by scaling the back wall of a local school, slipping through a window, and placing the documents right onto the student's desk.

-- Jennifer Rowland

New Posts: Knox Thames, "The Pakistani Taliban's ‘preposterous' ask" (FP). Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik and Jeffrey Dressler, "The case for an enduring mission in Afghanistan" (FP).

Free reign

The Obama administration is reportedly close to finishing the codification of its drone policies in a "playbook" that delineates clear rules governing the use of targeted killing around the world, but declares the CIA's drone campaign in Pakistan exempt from these restrictions (Post).

A lawyer for Pakistan's intelligence agency told the country's Supreme Court on Monday that the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) held seven suspected militants who were sought by the court for a year and a half without sufficient evidence to try them (AP). The admission is likely to heighten concerns in Pakistan of human rights abuses perpetrated by the security establishment under the guise of counterterrorism efforts.

Pakistani Foreign Secretary Jalil Jilani said at a press conference in Abu Dhabi on Friday that Pakistan plans to release all of its remaining Taliban detainees, including former deputy leader of the Taliban Mullah Baradar, in an effort to support the reconciliation process in Afghanistan (Reuters, AJE, AP, NYT). And the family of an official who was found dead in his home last week while investigating corruption charges against Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf is calling for an inquiry into his death (BBC, AJE). 

Coordinated attack

Five Taliban suicide bombers stormed the headquarters of the traffic police in Kabul early on Monday morning, starting a firefight that was followed by a remotely detonated car bomb that allowed them to rush into the compound (NYT, AP, Tel, LAT, AJE, Guardian, CNN, BBC). A battle between the insurgents and security forces lasted until just after 2PM, with all of the insurgents and at least three traffic officers reported dead.

A report released by the United Nations on Sunday found that despite a year of efforts to stem incidences of torture in Afghan prisons, abuse of detainees at the hands of the Afghan police forces has risen (NYT, AP, BBC, Guardian, LAT, WSJ). More than half of Afghanistan's 635 conflict-related detainees reported abuses such as being hung by their wrists from the ceiling, severely beaten with cables and rods given electric shocks, and threatened with sodomy.

Kabul's malodorous pollution

Air pollution in Kabul is a serious problem, and one that is often blamed on the city's poor sewage system; one municipal official declared in 2007 that the city "has the highest level of fecal matter in the atmosphere in the world" (NYT). The head of the United Nations Environment Program in Kabul calls that an urban legend, and says, "I think the need by diplomats for danger-pay raises is what has kept reports of fecal matter danger very high."

-- Jennifer Rowland